No. 2310

Patty a la Richelieu—Hot, Large

Gros Pate Chaud a la Richelieu

Butter a hot pie mold, lay it on a small baking sheet covered with a round piece of buttered paper, and line the mold with paste (No. 135); let it reach half an inch above the mold, cover the bottom and sides with buttered paper, then fill it up with rice and cover with a sheet of buttered paper. Dampen the inside paste and place a layer of the same on top, flatten the two layers together, cut off the surplus paste around the edge, pinch the top crest and the edges, egg it over and bake for one hour. Cut the cover inside of the border, empty the patty, egg over inside and outside, return to the oven, without the cover, until it assumes a nice color. Put into a buttered sautoir twelve blanched lambs' sweetbreads, season and moisten with stock (No. 194a), let fall to a glaze and remoisten; allow the liquid to reduce once more, and continue until the sweetbreads are moderately cooked; drain, trim and divide into slices three-eighths of an inch thick by one and a quarter inches in diameter, add to them a half a pound of mushroom heads cut transversely into thick slices, and an equal amount of rounds of red beef tongue the same size. Mingle these garnishings with a little veloute sauce (No. 415) reduced with the mushroom broth and a few spoonfuls of glaze (No. 402). Arrange this inside the pie, forming into a dome on top, and around it dress a chain of halved quenelles of veal molded with a soupspoon (No. 155) and poached; in the center range a pyramid of small round peeled truffles cooked when needed with Marsala wine. Cover the quenelles lightly with the veloute sauce. Serve the pie with the remainder of the veloute in a sauce-boat.

← No. 2309 Patty a la Palmerston-Large, Hot Miscellaneous Entrées No. 2311 Quail Patties—Small →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a raised hot pie built as a table centerpiece: a pastry case baked hollow, then filled at the last moment with a ragout of sweetbreads. Nothing in it is difficult, but the assembly is sequential and the pastry must be fully baked and dry before the wet filling goes in.

The hinge: bake the case empty and dryThe rice is not an ingredient — it is blind-baking ballast, and the buttered paper keeps it out of the paste. After the lid is cut away and the case emptied, the egg-wash and second trip to the oven set and seal the interior so the velouté does not soften the walls. Fill only as it goes to the table.
The moldA "hot pie mold" is a hinged, straight-sided raised-pie mold, plain or fluted, that unclips to release the baked case. A springform pan of similar depth is the nearest common substitute. Ranhofer gives no paste thickness — only that it should reach half an inch above the rim — but the case has to stand alone once the sides come off, so roll it stout.
Oven heatRanhofer gives no temperature. An hour for a large lined case of pie paste points to a moderately hot oven, around 375–400°F, dropping if the crest colors early; the brief return without the cover only needs enough heat to gloss the egg wash.
SweetbreadsTwelve lamb sweetbreads is roughly 1½–2 lb. "Blanched" assumes the usual prior work: several hours of soaking in cold water changed often, a brief simmer, then pressing under a weight until cold and firm. Skip the pressing and they will not slice cleanly at three-eighths of an inch.
"Let fall to a glaze"The stock is reduced to a syrupy film on the pan bottom, then more is added and reduced again — two or three cycles. This is braising for flavor concentration, not for tenderness; sweetbreads are done when just firm, and long cooking makes them grainy.
Cross-references and their substitutesNo. 135 is a pie paste; No. 194 a is the stock called for here; No. 415 is velouté; No. 402 is meat glaze, i.e. stock reduced to a sticky glaze — a spoonful of demi-glace does the same work. No. 155 is the veal quenelle forcemeat.
Red beef tongueThis means cured (pickled or corned) tongue, cooked and cooled, cut in rounds. Its color is half the point of the garnish. Fresh tongue works but the filling loses the pink-white-brown contrast that the dish is built around.
Vessels and shapingA sautoir is a straight-sided sauté pan with a lid. "Molded with a soupspoon" means the two-spoon quenelle shape, poached in barely trembling salted water or stock until they float and firm.
Yield and timingA large pâté chaud on this scale is a dish for a sizeable table — the quantities suggest something like a dozen portions as an entrée course. Spread the work: pastry case and sweetbread soaking a day ahead, forcemeat and velouté the morning of, the ragout finished and the pie filled within minutes of serving.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows the kitchen at its most architectural — a pastry shell baked hollow purely to be filled and crowned at the pass. The pâté chaud, or hot raised pie, descends from the medieval coffin pastry, which served chiefly as a cooking vessel though it was frequently eaten as well; by the nineteenth century the case had become edible and decorative, pinched and egg-glazed for the sideboard. Garnishes and dishes styled à la Richelieu are generally traced to the ducal house of Richelieu, most often to the eighteenth-century maréchal rather than the cardinal, though the classical repertoire attaches the name to several unrelated preparations and the connection is traditional rather than documented. What is certain is the vocabulary: sweetbreads, mushrooms, tongue, truffles and quenelles bound in velouté is the standard luxury filling of the period, and Ranhofer assembles it here in tiers — dome, chain, pyramid — because a large hot pie was expected to be looked at before it was cut.